1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to wires for retaining bales and, more particularly, to a prefeed and bender assembly for receiving, retaining and bending a preformed end of a bale wire prior to connection with the preformed opposite end of the wire.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common practice to wrap a large bundle of material, generally referred to as a bale, for transport and handling by means of a plurality of straps or metal wires. To use metal wire as a securement technique, the ends are formed in particular configurations that may be manually or automatically linked to form a continuous loop around the bale. One preformed wire connection demonstrating strength characteristics of at least 95% of the tensile strength of the wire itself is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,375,118 issued Mar. 1, 1983 to Millard P. Saylor. The preformed ends described in the Saylor patent may be manually interconnected at the side of the bale in contrast to a well known connection commonly referred to as a square knot connection. The prior art square knot connection not only has poor strength characteristics, but must be disposed at the top of the bale. When using conventional bale presses, it is difficult for the person applying the bale wire to view the connection during attachment.
The Saylor connection of said patent facilitates attachment by being connectable at the side of the bale. Although the Saylor connection is convenient to attach, the stiffness of the bale wire makes it difficult for personnel to feed and handle the wire. Each bale must be wrapped by six or eight wires after compression by a press. It is necessary to bend the stiff wire manually to facilitate the joining of the preformed ends, such as described in the Saylor connection, for interconnecting. Manual bending is fatiquing to the personnel applying bale wires to a large number of bales during a normal work assignment. Such difficulties can interfere with the overall efficiency of application of wires to the bales. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an assembly by which bale wire may be easily and efficiently applied to bales.